Dragon Wizard (16 page)

Lothan the fox jumped off his stump and started walking in a circle around us. As he did, I noticed that the copse of woods had become a full-blown forest and the rolling meadow had become little more than a clearing in the trees. Lothan looked at Lucille with an amused canine smile and I realized that the red fox hair was now a shaggy gray, and his muzzle was larger, more blunted.

Lothan the wolf asked, “Prince or princess?”

Lucille looked down at herself, and it was Lucille's body she looked down at, the original one. I didn't see the change. One moment she was the Dragon Prince, the next she was the human princess.
“What did you do?”
she asked in the dragon's voice, which felt very strange. I also noted that her eyes still resembled the dragon's: yellow, slitted, and double-lidded.

“What makes you think I did anything?” asked the wolf.

Lucille looked at me in confusion. I smiled at her, reached over, and took her hand. “What we are here is what we see of ourselves. You became a dragon, but you didn't abandon the princess completely.”

“Father would disagree.”

“Really? You've been ravaging the countryside? You
flew off to a cave to nest on your hoard? I hadn't noticed.”

“Frank, I'm not going to abandon my kingdom, or my father, or you, just because I'm a dragon.”

I lifted her chin because for once the height difference between us was in my favor. I looked into her golden dragon eyes. “No, you aren't, because the most important part of you is still the princess I tried to save a year ago.”

She leaned in toward me.
“Frank?”
she whispered, and her breath was warm on my cheek, still carrying a hint of brimstone. I didn't care.

“That's the part of you I fell in—”

“Can we move it along, please?” interrupted an annoyed-looking elk.

I spun around burning with anger that I only restrained by reminding myself that pissing off yet another deity was probably not in our best interest.

The elk cocked its massive antlered head, framed by the mountainous horizon. Those mountains weren't there before.

Lucille spun on the elk and was suddenly the dragon again.
“Move
what
along?”

The elk nodded its head at me. “What is it you want?”

“What?”
Lucille asked.

“Oh,” I said in growing realization.

Her massive head turned toward me.
“‘Oh,' what?”

“I summoned Lothan,” I said. “He accepted my sacrifice. He's waiting for me to request a boon of him.”

“More than saving us from Dudley the Inept?”

“Actually, that was a boon I granted
him
. Dudley was
about to claim Lothan's ritual space in Nâtlac's name. Judging by the Goddess Lysea's reaction to more or less the same thing, I suspect Lothan was happy for the opportunity to disrupt Dudley's efforts.”

“Just because you spilled blood on the altar before Dudley did?”

“If it wasn't for happy accidents, I don't think any of my plans would ever pan out.”

“You had a plan?”

“Still working on it.”

“Was it an accident?” Lothan asked. He was now a bear wading through a rushing stream whose rocky shore ended near Dragon Lucille's forelimbs.

Was it?
The questions were getting on my nerves. Before I could pursue the thought any further, Lucille—the human one—grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

“Frank! You know what this means!”
She looked at me with an expression of what I could only call ecstatic realization.

“What?” I asked. For a moment I thought she must have figured out how to stop the impending war with the elves.

“You can have your body back!”

“Yes, if we do that we can stop—Wait, what?”

“Your body, Frank! You saw what he did to all of Dudley's guards. Their bodies changed! He can change you!”

“Uh, yeah. I guess he could.” I hadn't even thought about that. She was right. Lothan's domain wasn't just illusion, deception, and chaos. As he had made a point to mention, he also dealt with transformation. You'd just have to ask the screech owl who stared at us impatiently
from a dead tree that leaned a little to the left of where the bear had been wading.

“Did you think otherwise?” the owl contributed. “Can we speed this up?”

“Frank? What's the matter?”

I took a step out of her arms and turned away from her. “Thank you,” I said. “That . . . it means a lot that you said that.”

“Frank?”

“But you know we can't do that now.”

“What do you mean? You deserve this. If we can—”

“But we
can't
, Lucille.” I kicked a rock so it skipped across the sandy desert that surrounded us. “Sure I could ask that, and Lothan would be happy to grant me that one boon. But it's not just my body now, it's
ours
. And that's the problem.”

“I don't mind having a—”

“And you've forgotten the part where our souls cease to exist?”

“That's not what Crumley said.”

“No, but that's what it amounts to.”

She bit her lip and looked down.
“Maybe it would be easier.”

“What? Are you seriously thinking . . .” I trailed off, because I knew she was. And I think I knew why.

“If I didn't want to be—
need
to be—the dragon . . . If you weren't in a body you were never intended to be in . . . We'd both get to start over at the same time. We could fit.”

“Or we'd end up twice as screwed up.”

“I've felt it. So have you. Would it be so bad?
Gradually thinking the same thoughts until there weren't any others?”

“We wouldn't be us anymore.”

“But we'd be together.”

Lucille was crying, and I took her into my arms.

“No,” I whispered into her ear as I embraced her. “That isn't going to happen. I'm not abandoning you.”

“You realize you
can't
abandon me right now?”

“You know what I mean.”

It wasn't the dragon's voice that answered. “Yes, I do.”

“You realize I'm still here?” A mule asked us as it scratched its rear against an old stone wall that bordered some farmer's fields.

We broke apart and faced Lothan.

“Can you prevent this? Split us back into our own bodies?”

The beaver set down his branch and asked me, “You would like both your separate spirits to own your own body, to control as they will?”

“Yes, that's the idea.”

King Alfred the Strident, my father-in-law, straightened his crown and arched a shaggy white brow while wearing a half-grin that was alien to his normally dour face. He stepped off his throne, smoothing his robes, and walked across the throne room, toward a chest in one corner by the fresh timbers waiting their role in the castle reconstruction.

I swallowed, because I was reminded of the damage to the castle, and to the Northern Palace, and the dead and injured left in my wake. I wondered if I had made the right decision. Was this just me being selfish again?

I looked over at Lucille who stared, gaping as her father rummaged in the chest.

“How can he . . .”
She spoke as if she hadn't noticed Lothan's many forms up to now. I guess her father was different.

“Illusion and transformation,” I said, reaching over and squeezing her hand, because I could.

I decided that I wasn't completely selfish.

King Alfred found what he had been rummaging for and lifted it up out of the chest. Only now he was King Dudley and we all stood in a wrecked temple lit by the remains of a dying bonfire. Dudley handed Lucille a metal flask, and I reached out and took it with her hand. Our hand. I stared at the dull gray metal flask, stoppered by an elaborate black wax seal. I looked up and we both said in Lucille's voice. “What do we do with this?”

Lothan/Dudley winked at us and said, “Why don't you read the instructions?”

We glanced down and there were engraved words on the metal surface. Unfortunately, the light was too dim in here for us to make out what it said.

Not that we'd get more chances to read it, since we stood, naked again, in Dudley's commandeered temple. It appeared that no more than a few seconds had passed since our departure. Dudley stood inside a ring of Lucille doppelgängers. Four of them, victims of Dudley's confusion or my brief fight, sprawled on the floor dead or unconscious. That left eight angry naked princesses, at least half of whom had managed to find some improvised weapon.

Maybe I should have asked for a discreet exit from this situation.

We gripped the flask and ran.

Lucille dove out the door, Lucilles in pursuit. We ran down a damp stone hallway partly lit by a few sconces holding burning torches. I realized now that she had wrested control of our body again. I hadn't actually realized it until she stopped just long enough at one of the rusty sconces to pull the torch from it. The torch was fresh, probably brought by Dudley's men.

I wanted to shout, “Stopping? Bad idea!” at her. However, one of those men, trapped in the body of a young princess, made the argument more eloquently for me.

He—she—swung at us with a long dagger.

Unclothed fighting is never a great idea in the best circumstances. However, if it is unavoidable, there are some weapons that you still just never,
ever
, want to face with naked skin. Near the top of those would be a burning torch wielded like a club.

Lucille was considerably more brutal with her twin than I would have been. And I felt relieved when our dagger-wielding opponent retreated, broiled but still living. However, the short confrontation gave Dudley's princess brigade a chance to catch up with us. They were too close for us to turn and run now; we were forced to back away, swinging the torch to keep the other Lucilles at bay.

It was a standoff in the relatively narrow corridor, but not one that could last. We were outnumbered, and all they needed was one lucky shot.

The corridor made a sharp turn behind us, and from that direction I heard running feet. My heart sank as I thought that Dudley's people had found a way to circle behind us.

I realized that the feet in question were clearly booted, and my heart sank further. Dudley must have left some guards at the entrance to this place, guards unaffected by Lothan's transformations, and we had just reached the point where they had heard the commotion.

We had to hope that the multiple Lucilles might confuse them enough to give us one shot with the torch. However, I heard two sets of boots. Any hesitation wasn't going to be enough. Lucille might disable one of the armored guards with a lucky surprise blow with the flaming torch. It was unlikely, but conceivable. Doing it twice in whatever window of surprise we had? That wouldn't happen.

But I felt Lucille's muscles tense on the arm that held the torch. Hopeless, but she would try anyway. I hefted the flask. I still had control of that arm. The metal might make a decent missile. If she went at one guy with the torch, I could throw the flask.

Still hopeless, but I could tilt the odds just slightly away from the completely impossible. Besides, if we died here, we weren't going to need Lothan's boon anyway.

We reached the bend in the corridor as the booted feet converged on us. Lucille spun, raising the torch as I lifted the heavy flask. We were going to need a miracle.

We got one.

Rounding the corner came Rabbit and Krys, fully armored, swords drawn.

Somehow, tense as we were, Lucille managed to keep the torch from slamming into Krys's face. My arm followed through on the throw, but I kept the presence of mind not to let the flask go. Where I had aimed, it probably would have sailed over Rabbit's head anyway.

Lucille hadn't expected my aborted throw. Her stance had already been thrown off balance by the sudden halt of her own swing. As my swing continued into the follow-through, we toppled forward at Krys's feet and the torch tumbled into the corridor behind all of us. Before our face planted at Krys's boots, I saw the wide-eyed expression of confusion on her face.

Of course, she had been looking past us toward all the other Lucilles.

Everyone hesitated several moments to take stock of the situation. Then, as Lucille lifted our face from the floor, we saw Krys's boot stepping over us. As Lucille pushed ourselves up, with my help, Rabbit leaped over our legs to join the battle.

Battle was a kind word.